Migraine Brain

  One side effect of having a chronic disorder is what's known generally as "brain fog" or "mental fog." Since I suffer from migraines, I tend to call it "migraine brain." Sufferers call it everything from "fibro fog," to "lupus fog," to "chemo fog" or "chemo brain," and on. Every chronic disorder has its own version.

  I'm not a doctor, so I can't say whether we all suffer the mental fog for the same reasons, but there's no denying that chronic disorder, mental fog, and depression go hand in hand together.

  I live my life in a haze of migraine brain. Some days are worse than others. On the days when it clears up, it really does feel like the difference between a sunny day and a pea soup fog day. Suddenly I can not only see my hand in front of my face, but I can see miles and miles and miles away! And it takes no effort at all!

  I've been known to exclaim after taking certain medications, "Oh wow! I can think again!"

  In a sense, those clear brain days make the fog even harder to handle. I have memories of good days. Not abstract, foggy, hard to recall memories, but memories from a few days, a week, a month ago. Something that's practically tangible. It's the cruelty of feeling hope, and having that hope taken away again. Again and again and again and again. It's trying to balance on a teeter totter that doesn't have a regular rhythm. Eventually you're going to fall.

  One time I lost the word "dance," and all associated words. I knew I knew the words. Mentally, I could envision dancing. Swing, ballroom, ballet, modern--I could see them in my mind, but I didn't have the words. I wound up describing dancing to the person I was talking to.

  "You know, that thing, where you can do it with music, and you move your arms and legs in set patterns, or sometimes it's not set patterns, and you can do it on a stage and sometimes you wear costumes. OH! They do it in clubs, too. When you go clubbing you do it and there's a special floor for it. Some kinds have special clothes, you know the fluffy skirts and those special shoes?"

  Take the tip of the tongue phenomenon, and make it a million times worse. Tears do fall.

  I've sat there and looked at a simple addition equation and been unable to solve it (and I'm the person who took multivariable calculus in college for fun).

  I've stared at medical forms, unable to remember how to spell my own name while looking at my name printed on the sheet.

  I've listened to people talking, and heard only noise. The words should make sense, but they don't. Ever listened to a foreign language that you don't understand? Based on the intonation, you feel like you just might be able to figure out what's going on if you listen a little bit harder. Not quite there yet, listen a little harder, no, just a liiiittle harder, you can do it, listen a little bit harder! But no matter how hard you listen, comprehension is out of your reach. And this isn't a foreign language, it's your native language.

  I've poured a gallon of milk down the sink and put a dirty cereal bowl into the fridge. Yes, an entire gallon. No, I didn't realize what I'd done until I closed the door on the cereal bowl and went, "That doesn't seem right..." I still opened and closed the fridge twice before realizing what was wrong with what I was looking at.

  If I can't find my car keys, and I can't remember where they are, I've started checking the freezer. Understand that often-used items have specific places they belong. Keys go to the right of my monitor. My phone goes to the left of my monitor. And yet somehow, my keys keep winding up in the freezer! Then there was the time I found my keys in the freezer and lost my phone at the same time. An hour later, I found my phone in the freezer (and lost my keys). It'd be an amazing comedy, if it weren't happening to me.

  You know how sometimes you walk into the kitchen and can't remember why you're there? So you walk out again, and as soon as you enter the room you originally left from, you remember. So you go back to the kitchen to get what you forgot. Rinse, repeat once or twice more. Well, set that to an infinite loop. And after about ten minutes of trying, you get so frustrated that you give up, stomp off, and cry.

  Most of this probably sounds like your average absentmindedness. It's not. Take absentmindedness. Exaggerate it to dramatic proportions. Add in the desire to scream or cry when your brain stops working, and you have a small taste of what it's like.

  You're trying to run on a greased floor, and no matter how fast your feet move, you're not getting anywhere. You understand the mechanics of running. Your arms and legs move properly, but the floor won't cooperate. And to make it worse, not only is the floor greased, but the whole thing keeps tilting in random directions.

  So I'm suffering from migraine brain right now, and this whole post was brought on because I was reading micro fiction tweets and couldn't understand one of the stories. I knew that if my brain were working right, I'd understand it instantly. I read it. I reread it. I checked six or seven times to see if people had commented on it, even though it's a tweet from five (? migraine brain, remember. I might have counted wrong) months ago, and the likelihood of someone posting an explanation in the second or two between checks was pretty much nil. I had to check again though. Just in case.

  I finally sent the tweet to my bestie (<3) to have it explained to me. And when she explained it, I wanted to slam my head against the keyboard while screaming, "THAT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE! WHY COULD I NOT UNDERSTAND THAT?!" I wanted to cry in relief, but also to cry because I hadn't understood it until she explained it. And once she explained it, I could see that the mental process that made that tweet make sense was the same exact mental process that worked for the tweet before and the tweet after, but somehow my brain refused to make the connection.

"Lost and found."
"I've lost all hope."
"So why call us?"
"Because... Ah, I see. Well spotted. Thank you."
"It's what we're here for."

— Micro SF/F Fiction (@MicroSFF) February 26, 2016

  Migraine brain. Bringing blog posts to a blog near you.

New Tablet!

  I've been stuck in bed the past two weeks (aside from a day here or there when I felt well enough to get up for a while). To some people, that might sound ideal--you get to sleep as much as you want! You don't have to move! You can laze around in bed like you haven't a care in the world.

  Too bad it's not like that.

  After a day or so in bed, you start to get bored. Even if you're asleep 20 out of 24 hours of the day, that's still 4 hours a day where you're stuck in bed. Then there are the cramps. Laying in bed may sound great, except that you aren't moving. And if you aren't moving, you start to cramp up. Positions that used to be comfortable cause various joints to ache and muscles to twinge. Even if you get up every so often to move around, it's not enough to combat those 20 hours you're asleep.

  But that's not why I'm writing this! No more moping and whining, because I have a new tablet!

  For me, when I'm dealing with being stuck in bed, my tablet is a necessary object. Always within reach while I'm in bed are three things: my phone, my bottles of water, and my tablet. Before electronic gizmos were so readily available, it would have been a stack of books. However, I've been beaned in the face enough times by teetering stacks of books that the tablet is by far the better choice. Not only can I read my entire library without stumbling out of bed, but I can play mindless portable games to get my brain off the pain. Tablets, unlike computers, don't require you to sit upright. The screen is a lot dimmer, which makes it easier on eyes that send stabbing pain through the brain when exposed to too much light. I can watch movies, listen to music, and talk to people, all from the (dis)comfort of flat on my back in bed!

  Yeah, tablets are great, and mine is practically a medical device. I've had the Galaxy Note 10.1 since a few months after the tablet was released. I love it. Nice, big screen. The stylus is wonderful for sketching, drawing, or writing, if I feel like writing instead of typing. Unfortunately, a) it's heavy--size means weight. And b) it's only the 16gig version. When I bought it, I didn't think that was a problem. I grabbed a 64gig microSD card to go along with it and figured that by the time I filled 80gigs, my tablet would probably be on its last legs.

  However, that didn't take into account the fact that with the original Note 10.1, you can't save apps to the external microSD card. You can save files, but most apps that can be installed on the Note 10.1 don't allow you to specify the save locations for their data. That means manually hunting down and moving files around.

  And as Android app games have gotten more complex, they've also gotten larger. My poor Note 10.1 ran out of space a couple of months ago, and no matter how many apps I removed or disabled, and no matter how many files I shifted around, I couldn't seem to clear more than half a gig of space. And then the frame cracked.

  I could have lived with all of that, using it as an ebook reader while treating it like it was made of spun glass to avoid cracking it further. But the Note 10.1 is heavy. Add all those little problems together, and I decided it was time to get a new--smaller--tablet.

  Just in time, the Memorial Day sales hit Amazon! I've had my eye on the Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 8.0" (yes, I'm a bit of a Samsung fangirl--every Samsung device I've had has performed admirably) for months now. I did my research, and everything I could find about the Tab S2 indicated that it was one of the best tablets on the market right now. Not only would it be considerably faster than my Note 10.1, the screen resolution is much larger, despite being 8.0" to the Note's 10.1". The 32gig internal storage is double my poor Note's 16gigs, and that took me over 4 years to fill! I imagine it'll take me closer to 8 to fill the Tab S2. On the one hand, it allows you to install most apps to the microSD card, and can hold up to a 128gig microSD card. On the other hand, apps will keep getting bigger as they become more complex, especially games.

  Via the wonder of Amazon Prime, I ordered my Tab S2 yesterday evening, and have already spent the last couple of hours playing with it as the pain lets me. Next day delivery, woo!

  It's practically half the weight of the Note 10.1, which makes reading easier. After two weeks of reading/playing Android games in bed, my right wrist hates me since it bears most of the weight of the tablet. There are so many lovely things about my new toy! I even took pictures of the unboxing, but since I typed this up in bed on the brand new tablet, I can't attach the photos right now. They're on my phone and I'm not feeling well enough to go through the effort of download-insert-format necessary to add the photos to the Blogger app.

  Aaaaanyway, just had to share my excitement with my new tablet! I'm going to go back to sleep now. Good afternoon!

Sleep Apnea, Oh My!

  In addition to my myriad of other health problems, I have sleep apnea. It's not a surprise--it's a common health concern, and most people are undiagnosed. Which makes sense. It happens when you're asleep. You aren't going to know you stop breathing if you're asleep when it happens. I'm "lucky" in that I woke up several times when I stopped breathing, and was actually alert enough to realize I'd stopped breathing.

  Sleep apnea is one of two things. The muscles in your throat relax so much that your airways become blocked (obstructive sleep apnea). This can also occur if there are physical problems with your airways, like a deviated septum. Or your brain stops sending the signal to your body to breathe, which is central sleep apnea. I suffer from both.

  Sleep apnea is categorized as needing treatment if it occurs more than 5 times in one hour. Everyone stops breathing while they sleep sometimes. But past that 5 times threshold, you're categorized as having mild sleep apnea.

  I stop breathing over 30 times an hour, which is categorized as severe sleep apnea. Considering that means I stop breathing every 2 minutes at a minimum, I can see why it's considered severe! As far as central sleep apnea goes, I only stopped breathing completely five times during the night due to my brain forgetting to tell my body to breathe. Not bad, considering.

  Sleep apnea means that I don't sleep as deeply as my body needs--I transition from deep sleep to light sleep. It explains why I always feel so tired, no matter how long I'm in bed. With the migraines, that can be up to 20+ hours a day, depending on how bad the migraine is.

  I did a home sleep study (horrible way to try and get a night's sleep, by the way. I was attached to a nasal measurer thingy, a blood oxygen thingy on my finger, a positional thingy around my chest, and a breathing thingy around my lower chest. Lotta thingies), which is what determined how many times a night I suffer sleep apnea. It was rather surprising to me, as I only woke up a couple of times a night not breathing. Over 30 times an hour?! Apparently that's common. You wake up so briefly that you don't even remember waking up in the morning.

  When I did the sleep study test of the APAP machine (the child of the CPAP, apparently it's the new thing in sleep apnea machinery), I had the best nights of sleep ever. I don't think I've felt that refreshed in years.

  An APAP machine blows a stream of air into your nose to keep your airways from closing. When it detects that your airways are closing, it increases the pressure of the air until the airways reopen. When you breathe out, it stops blowing air so that you can actually breathe out. It's pretty neat, even if it's anything but sexy.

  My APAP came today. I swear, there are no less than ten booklets included with the machine! I feel like this is rocket science or something. There's a booklet for how to put together the face mask. A booklet for plugging in and turning on the APAP machine (my doctor already programmed it, from what they're telling me). An instructional DVD for the APAP, in addition to a user manual. It has a humidifier, so there's an instruction  booklet for that, as well as a DVD. There's an instruction booklet on how often to replace your APAP supplies. There's an information booklet on sleep apnea. There are several warranty booklets for the various pieces of equipment. There's a general information and instruction booklet. And there are pamphlets and advertisements scattered throughout. There's also a couple of papers I'm supposed to sign, but I'm not sure where to turn them in...

  I'm amazingly excited to have the machine--I've missed those few nights of decent sleep. However, the booklets are intimidating! I've gone through the mask booklet, the humidifier booklet, the general information and instruction booklet, and the APAP machine usage instructions. I haven't looked at a single DVD yet.

  That reminds me. I need to get a note from my doctor to take it on the airplane. I'm sure it'll be fine, but I prefer to cover all bases.

  Go go being an adult, and being excited for medical equipment! ...I miss childhood...

SWTOR and PvP

  I tend to talk mostly about health and gaming on this blog. For people who don't really know me, or who don't know my leisure activities, I'm a gamer. I play online MMOs (massively multiplayer online games) as a sort of "painkiller"--it allows me to focus on something outside myself when I'm in pain. I focus on things to the exclusion of all else, so it works perfectly. And before anyone comes out and accuses me of being addicted or the like--nope, I'm not. I've been known to do things like read, knit, bead, or sleep when dealing with pain. It's whatever I feel like doing at the moment. I have no cravings to play if I'm not, but let's be honest. Fun activities mean you tend to do them, and gaming is fun for me.

  Over the past couple of days, I've begun PvPing in Star Wars: The Old Republic (that's Player vs. Player to those of you who don't know the terminology). PvP consists of real people playing against real people. TOR's PvP is some of the better PvP that I've encountered in games, although I'll admit that I haven't participated in PvP in most games I've played.

  In TOR, there are a bunch of maps that you're randomly sent to. Each map has a different sort of goal--there's are "capture the flag" style maps called Huttball, several maps where you capture different locations with varying results (in one, you get points from each location, so holding as many as possible is the best way to win. In another, holding a location causes you to attack the shield of the other team. Whichever shield hits 0 first is the loser. More locations mean more attacks against the opponents. In a third--well, I haven't quite figured that one out yet, since every time I've played, my team has lost). There's an arena, where the only goal is to kill the opposing team. There's a map I haven't played yet, so I can't tell you about it.

  Each team is made up of 8 players in most of the maps. There are a few with 4 players, and I'm told that ranked matches are always 4 players.

  My PvP character is in the low level bracket (from 10 to I don't remember the higher end but I think I'm getting there. 40?). I play a healer, as when I tried DPS (damage per second, don't ask why it's not just D instead of DPS, I don't know the answer) I found myself healing anyway. That's probably because the last time I did any serious PvP, I played a healing class.

  From what I understand, you can't do team ratings or solo ratings without being level 65, and my PvP character is only 34. I've played fewer than 20 matches, and I've been voted MVP 14 times (cool! I didn't even realize I'd been voted for MVP once, much less 14 times until I opened the window for this screenshot). I guess players like to thank their healers.

  My UI is currently a bit crowded--I have a combination of leveling buttons and PvP buttons. This isn't my full screen, just the lower quarter. Eventually the two side boxes of hotbars will go away, and the target windows will lower down. In the meantime, I keep my combat buttons on the bottom bar, and my heals up in the floating hotbar by itself. I tend to spend most of my time looking around my character, so that allows me to see what moves have cooled down.

  I'm a mouse-right-and-movement-left player who uses mouse look a lot. My main moves are all bound to either my mouse or keys near my movement keys. I try to make sure that no moves require me to remove my hand from the movement keys or the mouse buttons, so I can run at a moment's notice. As a healer, I do a lot of running in PvP, usually towards the DPS in the hopes that they'll peel whatever is attacking me off me and kill it. The hard part is that I have the directional sense of something with no directional sense, and can get lost in an empty room. Sometimes I wind up running away from my team instead of towards it.

  The worst is when I'm healing and suddenly the entire group of enemy players converge to slaughter me before turning and slaughtering my teammates. On the one hand, it makes me feel like I'm doing a good job if they're going for me first. On the other hand, I'm dead!

  Nothing proves how necessary a healer is like getting into an arena (4 vs 4 matches where the only goal is to kill each other) and fighting against a team without a healer. That happened last night, and the poor other team didn't stand a chance. They had one tank and three DPS (Tanks are heavy duty characters who soak up all the damage for their teammates, so that their teammates can do the what they do best--kill. Or in my case, heal). Our team was made up of a tank, two DPS, and me, the healer. We didn't lose a single person.

  It probably surprises some people that I PvP. In EQ2, I did housing almost exclusively, and constantly lost my buttons when trying to do combat. The thing is, EQ2 is the exception rather than the rule. Housing was so much fun in EQ2 (and still is) that I didn't bother to do anything else. EQ2 was my escape from combat. Before EQ2, I did hardcore raiding in several games, along with pretty serious PvP. When I came to EQ2, it was to take a break from all that.

  PvP right now allows me to relax and let off some steam. I don't do the trash talking thing. I don't mock my teammates or get unnecessarily annoyed at them. But there's something about slaughtering (or in my case, healing while someone else slaughters) a bunch of other people that's strangely soothing.

  With everything that's going on in my life, I need to relax, even if it's through slaughtering other people in a game!

Abandon All Hope...

  ...ye who enter here.

  I start every doctor's appointment with the expectation that nothing helpful will happen--I try to remember to hope for the best but to always expect the worst. Considering the number of appointments I've had that haven't produced any results, it's not surprising that I have this attitude. It's the only way to continue going to the doctor when you've been going for half your life, and no appreciable progress has been made. In fact, my headaches are getting worse.

  So it was surprising to me how disappointed I was after visiting my headache specialist recently. You don't really think about it unless you suffer from one of the myriad of chronic disorders, but eventually you change doctors. You exhaust the knowledge of the doctor you're with, and you have to find a new one. Or the doctor you're with retires, or moves to another state, or some other situation arises in which you can no longer visit your previous doctor. This doctor is one I've been with for years--practically since reaching adulthood. He's been with me through it all, and it's taken until this past year for him to run out of ideas. I'm probably his toughest case. Nothing works for me.

  I'm used to disappointment when it comes to medications. Why it suddenly hit me this time when I learned long ago not to hope for anything, I don't know. Maybe it's because my doctor finally admitted that he's out of ideas. The only thing he can think of is constant, low doses of painkillers. I'd prefer to stay away from that route, as that's how people become addicted to various painkilling medication. In fact, I ration my painkillers very carefully. It took me a year to finish one bottle of a popular extra strength prescription painkiller. Despite being told I could take the painkiller two days a week, I made 30 pills last 12 months. I'd rather be in pain than addicted.

  There is a bit of hope--my doctor will be attending a neurology conference in June. He'll be asking around to see if any other doctors have suggestions on what else to try. If that doesn't work, he'll help me vet clinical trials to see if anything will work. He already suggested another TENS unit that might help more than my Cefaly, or that might help more if used in conjunction with the Cefaly. Unfortunately, it's currently extremely expensive. In the meantime, I'm going to wrestle with the disappointment of another three months of uncontrolled migraine pain with no treatment in sight.

Testing Testing 1 2 3...

This is just a test. I repeat, this is just a test. No one panic, this is just a test!

The Parking Attendant From Hell

  Well, that was one of the worst customer service experiences of my life.

  Family member has a handicapped parking permit. We came to Kaiser for her dialysis lessons today, and were actually on time. Unfortunately, the Cadillac Kaiser clinic is always horribly congested, especially after 8 AM. We expected it would take some time to park, but we weren't expecting to run into the parking attendant from hell, who made us park at the furthest end of the parking lot from the elevators.

  When I asked him why we couldn't park closer to the elevators even if we didn't park in the handicapped spot, I was told that they were using the spaces for employees (they're clearly marked "Patient Parking"). He then insisted there were only 4 handicapped slots for the entire parking garage (there are 2 per floor, and 4 floors). Finally, he told my family member that the closer parking spots were for "real" handicapped people, that a lot of people cheat the system, and he was going to "keep [his] eye on [her] and watch [her] walk to the elevators." The implication being, of course, that she doesn't need a handicapped permit, and he's going to revel in watching her get her comeuppance.

  We're easygoing people, but that was beyond the bounds of acceptable behavior. We complained to his manager, and I hope that he receives an attitude adjustment. Bad day or not, there's no reason to take it out on other people, and to accuse them of lying. As I pointed out to his manager, just because someone's handicap isn't readily visible doesn't mean that it isn't there. She had knee surgery 20 years ago, and her knee has never recovered.

  The worst part? My family member stopped me from getting his name, so that we could be sure that the right person was disciplined.

  Not an auspicious start to a Wednesday.

  Also, today is street cleaning, and I think I left my car on the street. Damn it.

Gardening Woes

  I'm not an avid gardener. I have a green thumb, but I'm very sensitive to the sun, and the migraines make it hard to spend enough time outdoors to really care for delicate plants. However, that hasn't stopped me from nursing several rose bushes back to life after they were almost completely cut down by the gardeners (there's a difference between trimming and relentlessly whacking a bush to death). I've planted, grown, and tended six lemon trees--five are healthy and the sixth is clinging to life with everything it has. The poor thing has always been smaller than the others. It was a late bloomer (haha), and had all its leaves destroyed by some pest when it was less than six inches tall. It's still valiantly striving to grow, though.

  I have also have a couple of tiny pine trees I got for free one Christmas from the tree place that was trying to get rid of them, which are now a lot taller than they were; several containers of various flowers; pots of herbs; and catnip--which is an herb, but not one humans eat.

I've been wondering why the catnip was only growing along the edge of the pot.
I finally caught the culprit red-pawed! And he shows not an ounce of guilt.

  A day or two ago, there was a strong wind. I didn't think anything of it until I went into the back yard this morning (now yesterday morning). The final pine tree that needed to be re-potted from its small pot to a larger one was over on its side. I went to pick it up, and about a quarter of the pot came off in my hand.

You can't see it, but there are a lot of cracks in the pot.

  Cue a surprise trip to Home Depot. I left at about 9:30 AM and shopped for a couple of hours. I know, I know. I went to get one pot for the poor tree. Then I realized I should pick up pots for the lemon trees, and a gift for my parents' anniversary, and a pot for that. And I needed more potting soil to add to the new pots. Not to mention gardening gloves. I usually prefer to do my gardening barehanded so I can feel the soil. Unfortunately, my thumb nail tore off two days ago, so the area at the end of my thumb is basically an open wound. And since I like to feel the soil, all of my work gloves are too thick to use as gardening gloves. Luckily I found a set at Home Depot which is thinner (not such a good thing when dealing with pine trees, but the backs are thick, so that's a good trade-off) and which have the pointer and middle fingers of both hands as touchscreen compatible! I sneered a bit at that when I bought them, and promptly found myself using the touchscreen fingers to switch my music selections while gardening.

I should have taken the picture before using the gloves.
Oh well! Furious digging, and only slightly stained.

  Yes, I am a cyborg. I was plugged in to music from my phone using Spotify and my Bluetooth headphones. I love those headphones. They're great for music if you're out and about--you can hear through the headphones so you aren't ever caught by surprise, but at the same time, the music quality is superb. I'm no audiophile, though. And the phone function of the headset isn't great. If you're in a building, in the car, or some other location with very little background noise, they work fine. If you're outside, everything from the wind to screaming children down the street is picked up by the microphone.

  But back to Home Depot! I was a bit embarrassed during the trip. I'd parked in front of the tool rental--habit--and the garden center is on the opposite side. I left with so much stuff that the cashier asked me if I wanted someone to help me load it all. Normally I would say no. I was flustered and said yes. The poor guy insisted on pushing the cart, and then we had to hike all the way across the parking lot. Then my trunk was full of stuff since this was an unexpected trip. He managed to stuff the two containers of potting soil into the trunk. Then I had to back my car out so he could stuff six giant pots into my back seat. I took the gift for my parents (hint: It smells divine and is very angry. I have the puncture marks to prove it) and put it in my front seat. Usually I buckle things like the pots and the plant in just in case (and electronics, too. My computers and monitors will never be cited for not wearing a seat belt), but I was so scatter-brained from everything that I forgot. It didn't help that it wasn't until the guy was leaving that I realized I was probably supposed to tip him. Then there was a guy with a cart who stopped to let me back out the rest of the way, and an impatient van a couple of cars down and across the aisle who was trying to pull out and who was very upset at the guy waiting for me to pull out. So I floored it out of there, hoping that no one noticed how weird everything was.

  Everything was going fine, until I realized that my GPS--yes, I have horrible direction sense, and I use a GPS to go everywhere (more evidence that I'm a cyborg)--was telling me I had to make a U-turn, I was in the right lane, and there were three lanes to get across before I could make the turn. I dove across the lanes (I was safe, no one else was around behind me! What kind of crazy person do you take me for?), zipped into the turn lane, saw it was green and that no one was close enough to impede a safe U-turn, and zoomed around the turn, and despite a more than safe distance between me and the upcoming car, I panicked a little and floored it through the turn so he wouldn't slam into me (I affectionately call my car Betsy, because she's more of a cow than a horse. Flooring it in Betsy is like going normal speed for everyone else). One set of pots promptly fell over against the other set of pots, and the plant-gift tried to take a nosedive onto my floorboard. Nooooooo!

  At the next red light, I managed to belt in the Very Angry Plant (and yes, I did apologize to it for squishing its leaves), but I couldn't do a thing about the pots, which continued to slide around no matter how carefully I drove the rest of the way home. Well, at least until the second set of pots wedged themselves against my seat and the first set of pots, and kept everything steady. Painful for my back, but steady.

  Getting the stuff into the back yard was a trick. I had 80 pounds of potting soil (3 cubic feet. I looked up the weight of a bag of 1.5 cubic feet of potting soil. 40 pounds, apparently), approximately 80 pounds of pots, a Very Angry Plant, gloves, starter pots, a packet of seeds, a trowel, and a potting trowel (because I left mine out one rainy night, and they turned into piles of rust). By now, it was lunchtime. I counted and calculated, and the distance between my car and the spot in the back yard where I dumped all the gardening equipment was 48 yards. 48 yards x 5 trips back and forth. No wonder my body hates me. On the plus side, I easily hit my 10k step goal today. My Fitbit was very happy with me. Cyborg, I tell you. Cyborg!

  Back on the minus side, it was lunchtime. I grabbed a quick meal, then I re-potted the pine that was in the broken pot. That wasn't so bad, except that pines have a vendetta against me, and it was horribly painful when it stabbed me all up and down my arms. All right, you caught me. It wasn't horribly painful, but it was terribly uncomfortable. With the rescue tree in its new home, I turned to the biggest pine. I'd planted it in a very large container of a lovely umber color.

(image)

  Unfortunately the pines are going to need larger pots--they'll grow to something like six feet tall, and the pot it was in is shaped in such a way that it wouldn't be easy to remove the tree to re-pot it when necessary. Since the tree had only been in the pot for a few months at most, I decided that now was the ideal time to switch pots. After all, I'd just purchased a brand new pot for it!

  It gets worse. As I was digging away at the soil in the pot, moving it to an empty pot for storage while avoiding the vicious needles (apparently I only like Very Angry Plants), I discovered that the pot had a bad case of white grubs. What specific type, I don't know. They all tend to be the offspring of scarab beetles, but I wouldn't know which scarab beetle produced these grubs if you offered me a billion dollars. If you decide to watch the video, I highly suggest turning  your volume very low. My phone's microphone picks up everything, and I didn't bother editing the video at all.

  I've covered the grubs in soil since I took this video, as I'm curious what they'll turn out to be. I'll cover the top with some mesh so I can get a look before the adult beetles fly off.

  The entire ordeal took all day. By the time I was done with Home Depot, lunch, and re-potting, it was about 6 PM. Most of my gardening was done during the hottest part of the day, because that's the smart thing to do, right? Go outside without sunscreen or shade, and tough it out. RAWR, me Anonymous Cyborg, me strong like rock!

  Phew! I think that just about covers my less-than-stellar day. To finish, let me leave you a picture of my arm after I finished wrestling with the pine trees.

The red bloody mark is due to a vampi--er, I mean a phlebotomist.
The red rashy look is entirely tree related.
I usually have rather pale arms with a slight greenish tint thanks to the very visible vein along the underside of my arm.

Beware of Identity Theft and Phishing Scams

  Some family members had their identities stolen via their AmEx card. Over $6700 was spent at Lumber Liquidators in Virginia. They thought that was the end of it, canceled the card, and put a fraud alert on all their cards.

  Since then, they've received two different calls from people claiming to be from AmEx's fraud department, one on their house phone and one on a cell phone. Each call gave a number that they claimed was their direct line. They stated that they needed more information about the insurance claim. The messages that they left were exactly the same, as though reading off a script. The call on the home phone's caller ID didn't match the name that was left in the message. Both individuals who called knew the exact amount that was used at Lumber Liquidators.

  I advised my family members that it was probably a continuation of the scam, and if they wanted to talk to the fraud department, they should call AmEx's normal line and ask to be redirected. They should also also ask AmEx if the number actually originated from AmEx, since the callers claimed it was their "direct line" rather than "personal number."

  The thing is, AmEx doesn't have their cell phone number, just their house phone. And when they did call AmEx, AmEx had no record in their system of the phone number supposedly belonging to the individuals in the fraud department.

  Please be wary of any identity theft. Most especially, please be sure that if a company calls you, and you didn't contact them first, call the business number for that company, not whatever "direct line" they offer. Never call a direct line unless you get it from a live person after calling the business number from that company yourself.

  This is a phishing scam, and my family members are lucky they weren't caught by it, thanks to the inconsistencies I noticed.

Be safe!

Don't Pity Me

  A good friend of mine posted a picture of some text on Facebook. She also has a chronic disorder, and is constantly trying to educate others via conversation and shared Facebook articles and pictures.

  The message of the image was, "We don't talk about our problems to garner pity. We do it to educate, and because whether we want it to be or not, it's a major facet of our lives. We're still ordinary people. Learn about our difference, don't judge us for it. Pity is judgement." This isn't a quote from the image, but what I got out of reading it, and what I think others should, too. For the curious, I've included the image below.

  My friend shared the image from Chronic Perseverance's Facebook page. I don't know if that's where the image originated, but that's where it was found.

  This hits home hard. I've been an object of pity more than once. Shock, horror, "I wouldn't wish that on my enemy, I'm so sorry you have to deal with it!" There's a fine line between empathy and pity.

  If you're "sorry" about what I'm dealing with, you've passed the line. If you tell me, "Ugh, that sucks," or something similar, you're still safe. You're empathizing with me. Think twice about how you talk to anyone with a physical or mental health issue (or any other issue). If you're treating us outside the norm, you probably need to rethink your treatment of us. We're all people. Some of us have different hurdles to overcome than others, but everyone's on this big ball of rock hurdling through space all together. You have issues. I have issues; mine just happen to be physical.

  So don't pity me. Empathize with me, work with me, learn about me, but don't pity me. I don't want it, and I don't need it.

SWTOR: Something A Little Different

  Up until now, I've been talking about health issues. Right now, they're a dominating force in my life--I have to arrange my life around my chronic disorders as well as the various doctor's appointments for my family member going through dialysis. I'll be going to training with her, as well as continuing to visit all of her appointments to act as a second set of ears as well as an advocate if she needs it (unlikely since she's already out of surgery).

  So let's do something a little different! I'm going to talk about SWTOR, also known as Star Wars: The Old Republic.

  It's a fun game for me. I hadn't really played the game until a bit ago, despite having an account since nearly the beginning of the game. My highest character prior to all the stress of my family member's kidney disease was level 7. Now I have multiple level 65s (the level cap). One day I intend to have one of each type of character up to 65. However, as a roleplayer, I keep getting fun ideas for characters and making new ones. Ack! It's really hard to get every character class to 65 when I keep restarting.

  I have trouble with credits (money) in the game. As a friend said, "Easy come, easy go." Since I have a fascination with fashion and creating outfits--most of which my characters don't wear, since I tend to settle on one outfit and wear that the most often--I spend a lot of credits on the GTN (Galactic Trade Network for you non-TOR players, also known as a broker or auction house) purchasing various fashion items. And because I like to use pieces of various sets across multiple characters, I try to purchase an entire set of clothing, since if you've equipped every single piece, you can buy an unlock for it from the "Collections" page that allows you to claim as many copies of that armor on any of your characters that you want. The way they prevent GTN bloat is that any copy you claim is already bound to your character.

  Did I mention that clothing that can be unlocked only comes from the cartel market (cash store)? You might think that's a bad thing, but it's not bad. People who want to spend money for instant gratification can buy the armor. But the armor unlocks its bound status (as long as you don't equip it) after two days. So if you want to make easy money on the GTN, you purchase a set of armor, wait two days, then toss it up on the GTN. For those of us who don't like spending real life money on in game items, we check the GTN for the items we want, and buy them that way.

  So, my credits tend to go out rather than in. The most I've had at one time has been 7 million credits, which sounds like a lot, but you have to realize that credits are the only type of currency in the game. In something like EQ2, that'd be 7 platinum (if I did my math correctly). It's not a perfect exchange, of course. Credits have a bit more worth than platinum in the game. Still, while 7 million sounds like a lot, it isn't. And of course, I spent 6 million of it the day I hit 7 million, so that didn't last long! (500000 credits per clothing item eats up millions very quickly. Of course I have expensive clothing tastes.)

  I'd post screenshots of my character, but I'm a little distinctive in looks--I'm not sure how I managed that--so while I may post images of various things I'm doing, you won't be seeing me in any of them. One day when I'm not quite so keen on remaining anonymous, perhaps.

  OH OH OH! Did I mention one of the best parts, at least as far as I'm concerned? Every single quest has a cutscene. That's right. You get a mini movie every time you go to do a quest (or in TOR, mission). It's great the first time, and some people (like me) like to watch them every time. But for those people who think, "Once is enough!" there's an option to turn off the cutscenes. So it's the best of both worlds.

  All right, back to TOR. I'm in the process of crafting a bunch of items for the friend who introduced me to the game. Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee. Once a crafter, always a crafter!

Medicine Frustration

  Is there anything quite so frustrating as contacting a doctor hoping they can fix whatever's wrong with you--especially when they were the one who asked you to call in the first place--only to be told, "Well, all we can do is wait, because I want to see if your physical symptoms go away."

  My psychiatrist and I have been trying to get my current bout of bipolar mania under control. I'm taking the maximum dose of lamictal that he feels is safe (he upped my dosage to 300 mg a day over a week ago). He thinks the lamictal is doing what it should, but it's not enough, despite my mild symptoms.

  The abilify seems to be making me super dizzy, and has shot my concentration all to hell. I'm only taking 2.5 mg, but it seems to be affecting me more than any of the other medications have before.

  I called him yesterday per his instructions--I was to call him a week after my appointment in order to update him on how the medications were working. Short answer: They aren't. The abilify has dealt with the insomnia for the most part. That is, if sleeping 4 hours instead of 2 hours is "dealing with," especially when I'm an 8 hour kind of gal. Pretty sure I've said that before.

   There isn't much to do other than to wait, but that doesn't stop the frustration. It's been a week, and I'd like to see some improvement over, "Well, at least you're getting a bit more sleep." I'm not even safe to drive because of how slowed my reflexes are, how absentminded I am, and how off my depth perception has become. That doesn't include how my equilibrium has decided to leave me. I randomly tip over and almost fall without feeling the least dizzy.

  Not much to say other than that.

  P.S. Don't pity me. I'm frustrated, not incapacitated.

Kidney Disease and My Health

   Kidney disease runs in my family. My ancestors from several different generations have passed away due to kidney disease and eventual kidney failure.

  A family member close to me is suffering from kidney failure. She's about to start dialysis--she had the catheter surgery a couple weeks ago. Yes, it's called a catheter, but it isn't in the usual spot you think of with a catheter. It's in her abdomen.

  I was there for the surgery, sitting in the waiting room to find out how it went. I've been taking her to her flush appointments, where they run fluid into and out of the abdominal cavity where the dialysis fluid will be inserted. I've listened to her nurses, asked questions, and generally tried to keep updated on what's going on.

  The longer this goes on, the more I realize how much it affects me. One day this could be me. That's a selfish thought--not only could it be me, but right now someone I know and love is going through this. The only thing I can do is to offer one of my own kidneys. If I'm a match, she'll have a single working kidney and will have to take anti-rejection pills for the rest of her life. There's still the possibility that even with the pills, her body will reject the kidney. There are a lot of parameters that have to be met before someone "matches" for a kidney. It's not just blood type.

  If I'm not a match, I have a few options. I can choose to give my kidney to a stranger who matches me, and whose kidney donor matches my family member. I can choose to donate my kidney to an anonymous individual, whose donor will donate to another anonymous person, all the way down the line until a kidney match is found for my family member. There are things I can do, but I don't know if my health problems prevent me from being a donor. I don't think they will, but it's something that I worry about. I don't have any control over the situation unless I'm able to donate a kidney. The best scenario is that I'm a match. We can hope.

  The kidney failure means that I don't have as much time to relax as I've had before. I'm running errands constantly--she isn't allowed to lift more than five pounds, so I'm doing all of the lifting, from milk cartons to baking pans. I pop in and out of games and read books in my downtime. As I said, recently my game of choice has been SWTOR. I have no obligations to anyone in that game, so I can hop on and off without any worries. I'll be back in EQ2 eventually, but right now real life supersedes any games where I have obligations. Bejeweled in Zen mode has also been a distraction from life for me, as I sit around at various appointments.

  Then there's me. I have a lot of doctor's appointments coming up. From the psychiatrist, who's trying to balance my medications, to the migraine specialist, who's running out of medications for me to try. The optometrist, because my eyes keep slowly getting worse--it's not that my eyes are much worse than they used to be, but I'm very sensitive to any change in my vision. A single difference in prescription, and it bothers me that things aren't as clear. I already did the dentist, thank goodness. But I'm due for a physical. And I'm trying to lose weight, because there are a lot of upcoming events where it would be nice to look my best. Whew! Life. It's busy, man.

Medications Suck!

  Nothing is worse than taking a medication for several weeks or months, and then realizing it doesn't work.

  It's not so bad for migraines--if in a week I don't notice a difference in my pain, there's a high probability that it didn't work. However, bipolar medications aren't like that. Bipolar medications are very all-or-none. If you take them, you won't know they're working unless you don't have a bipolar episode. As some people can go months or years without experiencing an episode, they have no idea if their medications are working or not, until they have an episode. At that point they realize that nope, it wasn't working.

  In my case, I seem to have an episode every couple of weeks. In fact, I'm in the middle of one right now. Insomnia, impulsive behavior (I haven't done anything worse than my 2 am shopping sprees, luckily), and too much energy are only a few of the things that I'm dealing with right now. It's unfortunate that that means my medications aren't working. I upped the dose on my lamictal--a mood stabilizer--and added abilify to the list--another mood stabilizer with sedative properties to try and help me sleep. The good news is, I'm getting 4-5 hours instead of 2-3, and I can even take naps during the day, which can bring me up to 6-7 hours.

  The bad news is, my balance has been shot all to hell. I'm dealing with vertigo, and my decision making skills are poor. My reflexes are slowed. I keep getting distracted--ooh, shiny!--and I'm pretty oblivious. For example, I opened the door to get the newspaper. Velvet, one of my cats, was waiting outside to come in. I walked Velvet through the kitchen to the hallway. The cats were clustered in the hallway, asking for food. I fed them. Then I walked out to the kitchen to get some water, and started some coffee instead. It was as I was prepping the coffee that I happened to look towards the front door and realized that I'd left it open and hadn't gotten the newspaper. I brought in the newspaper, and remembered the water. Back into the kitchen, only to be distracted by the coffee again. I never did get my water.

  This doesn't even count the time that I left the keys in the lock when entering the house. A day later, I locked the front door and completely failed to notice the keys hanging from the bottom lock. It was my family member--who I was going to drive to her flush appointment--who noticed and pointed them out. Oops.

  I don't know if it's the new medication (abilify), if it's the increase of lamictal, or if it's a combination of the two. Whatever it is, I'll be calling my psychiatrist as soon as possible. I can't continue like this.

A Bit Too Much Information

  So now that I've gotten the "why I'm doing this and what I'm doing" out of the way,  let's get to the nitty gritty. There's a lot going on in my world right now, and I'm being as upfront and transparent about my own issues as it's possible to be. I'd like to show you that what's going on with me is no impediment to me enjoying life.

  I have chronic debilitating migraines. I can't work because of them. I have debilitating migraines several times a week. If I don't have a debilitating migraine, I have a less painful migraine. 24/7, I'm in pain.

  Added to that, I was recently diagnosed as bipolar. Yep, I said it and I'm not going to hide it. It's not something I should be stigmatized for. There's a lot of misinformation about being bipolar floating around, and I hope that by sharing my life and experiences, I can combat the prejudice and ignorance that hovers around a bipolar diagnosis.

  How does one go about only recently being diagnosed as bipolar, you might ask. It's simple. When I was diagnosed with migraines, I mentioned the symptoms that ultimately labeled me as being bipolar. Migraine symptoms and bipolar share a lot of the same characteristics. It wasn't until I realized that I was having these episodes without my migraine pain changing that my doctor realized it wasn't the migraines. He sent me to a therapist, who sent me to a psychiatrist after taking my information and determining that I was actually bipolar.

  There are many types of bipolar. "Bipolar" is a blanket phrase that covers a lot of different types. There's bipolar I, bipolar II, cyclothymic disorder, mixed bipolar, and rapid-cycling bipolar. Having any of these doesn't automatically mean you're one way or the other. Being one type of bipolar doesn't mean you aren't some other type as well. Think of bipolar like a check list with a 1 - 10 choice system per list item. You can check off one or more items, and for each one, you can be mild or severe. Much like any other aspect of life, it's a spectrum. You might have symptoms so mild, even a trained psychologist will have trouble diagnosing you correctly. You might have extreme symptoms. This is what most people think of when they think of bipolar.

  I'm considered mild bipolar 1 with mixed features--I've had at least one (quite a few, in fact) episode of mania, and I often exhibit signs of both mania and depression at the same time. I've never bought something I couldn't afford, nor have I made more than one life choice that I regret. Yes, I do what I call "2 am shopping" when I'm manic. I use my phone, find something that mildly interested me before the mania, and buy it. Luckily, the items have so far either a) been something I truly wanted even after the mania, but that I denied myself for some reason, or b) were returnable.

  No one in my life has so far been surprised by my diagnoses of bipolar. In fact, the most often response I hear is, "Oh wow. Yeah, that really explains a lot." This tells you a few things. First, that the signs I exhibited were mild enough that people could shrug it off as normal behavior for me. But second, they did notice signs, and the diagnosis of bipolar explained how I act to them.

  My family can all tell when I'm having a manic episode. I become very energetic and motivated, though I rarely finish the projects I start. I talk faster, with more enthusiasm about everything in my life. I suffer insomnia--luckily, the longest I've gone without sleep has been 36 hours. Usually I wind up sleeping 2-3 hours a night, when I'm an 8 hour girl.

  With all that said, I do my best not to use being bipolar as an excuse for behavior or choices I may make. During an episode--and I'm often aware of my episodes, unlike most other bipolar people--I might make choices I regret. I won't ever say, "Oh, I did this because I'm bipolar." If I'm self-aware enough during an episode to say something like that, I'm self-aware enough to not do the behavior I'm trying to excuse. On the other hand, sometimes an episode will end, and I'll regret something. In those cases, I find it acceptable to say, "Well, I did something because of the bipolar episode. What can I do to fix it?"

  I have some other health issues, but those two are the major ones, and are the ones that cause the most visible problems. I remind myself that my health issues do not define me. I define what they can and cannot do to affect my life, to the best of my ability.

  I can live my life, or I can give up. I choose to live.

Getting Things Set Up: About Me

  This is mostly a first post so that I can get everything set up on the blog the way I like it. However, that doesn't mean I can't talk about myself and what this blog is about.

  I'm an opinionated person who likes to have her voice heard, but also likes her anonymity. I've done the thing where people know who you are. I've become well known in some (online) circles. It's not hard to do. Be the person who responds a lot, who has the knowledge that everyone else needs, or who can find the information if they don't know the answer.  Any online community has their little celebrities. Unfortunately, being a little online celebrity means that when you're in the community of your choice, you don't have any peace. As someone known to a community, you wind up answering a lot of questions. People take you for granted, and it's assumed that you're there for them.

  So I've come here to be (mostly) anonymous. This isn't about hiding who I am--finding out who I am is really a rather simple process. Of course I'd prefer you don't go around cyber-stalking me, but if that floats your boat, who am I to stop you?

  My previous online persona is too closely tailored to a specific game, I'm afraid. Because of a lot of "real life" (non-game related) situations going on at the moment, I'd prefer to be a little more open ended. I'm here to vent, to rant, to talk, to examine, to praise, to rave about, to explore ideas--basically anything and everything I can think of.

  Why "An Anonymous Cyborg?" Because this is the digital age. I'm a member of it, and there's no use pretending otherwise. I'm glued to my smartphone. In fact, I just purchased a mophie juice pack for my cell phone for those days when I'm out and about while using the phone a lot, and don't have the time or the means to charge it. Of course I'm a bargain shopper, so I checked out a few different websites. Amazon won for the least expensive mophie.

  If I'm home and feeling well, there's a high probability that my computer is on. If it isn't, I probably have my tablet. It's great for reading books, watching movies, and playing little portable games if I'm stuck in bed or otherwise unable to do non-computer stuff.

  As for being Anonymous--you're as anonymous as the internet lets you be, which isn't very. And yet I'm one of the faceless masses, and I understand and accept that. I am this Cyborg and no other, but someone else looking at me may not see my individuality. I am one of who knows how many bloggers, yet another person posting about their ideas, their life, their likes, desires, thoughts, and opinions. So I embrace my anonymity.

  For now, I'll probably be focusing on some family health issues that are going on in my life. Between the family health issues and a wedding in the family, things are busy right now! I may make a post or two about the game I'm currently using to decompress--SWTOR. Yes, my dear EQ2 people, I am still online and I haven't abandoned you. However, EQ2 is too intense for me right now. I've been a member of that community since a year after the game came out. People talk to me all the time in the game, and I like being anonymous for the time being. It means I can hop on and off a game as time lets me, without feeling obligated to help this person or that with their game issues.

  Additionally, while I may mention (let's be honest, I will) family members, I will do my best to keep their names and relationships to me as anonymous as possible (yet another layer to the anonymity!). If they should give me permission to name them, I will. Otherwise, it's anonymous for all!